Class-action case targets LeBeau

James LeBeau shorted them on pay, a group of the local promoter’s current and former workers claim in a class-action complaint filed this week in federal court.

Lebeau heads LeBeau Inc. and does business as Beau Productions. His company manages Frontier Field and LeBeau is the stadium director. His company also mounts the Lilac Festival and other events.

A seven-member group, including six ex-LeBeau Inc. employees and one current Frontier Field worker, claims in a class-action suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Rochester that LeBeau failed to pay full wages due them.

The suit names LeBeau Inc., LeBeau as the firm’s president and LeBeau Inc. vice president Susan LeBeau as defendants.

In all, a minimum of 50 individuals could join the class action, the complaint states.

The wage-and-hour claim comes three months after the state Department of Labor launched a probe of LeBeau Inc. over alleged violations of the state’s prevailing wage law at Frontier Field.

The prevailing wage statute states contractors and subcontractors working under a public works project must pay certain minimum hourly wage rates known as prevailing wages. The state-set rates vary for workers in various job categories and vary by county. The basic prevailing hourly rate for a Monroe County floor mechanic, for example, is $24.12. The same job’s prevailing rate in Chemung County is $25 an hour.

Some wage-and-hour suits plaintiffs are also complainants in the prevailing wage investigation, said the class-action plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Mullin of Ferr & Mullin in Fishers. The two sets of claims cover some of the same ground but are not directly related, he said.

The class-action alleges two types of violation: Festival and air show workers say they were paid for all the hours they worked but did not get overtime pay for weeks when they put in more than 40 hours. Frontier Field workers claim that under state and federal labor laws they were supposed to be paid by the hour but were wrongly treated as salaried workers.

(Correction: an early viersion of this article indicated LeBeau has been involved with Park Ave Summer Art Festival. That event has been produced since 1998 by the Springut Group.)
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